WHO
2009-06-04 : whining
Fourth Cablevision visit in two weeks. Despite the assurances from the chuckle heads on the phone, this was neither a senior technician nor an elite team of crack Cablevision operatives, but I guess the lies were a fun fantasy for their duration. At least they gave me hope. No, this was a junior technician, and I know that because he complained that only senior technicians get “c-pods,” and everybody else has to deal with manual paperwork, phone calls, and work orders. Also, junior technicians get shitty hours, which is why he’s working till 8.
He took readings at my HVAC room, at my cable modem’s jack, at the tap in the garbage room, and verified what two out of the last three technicians were able to verify (the other just wanted to go home, and seemed to think (no joke) that as long as the packet loss was under 20%, it was probably okay) — there’s something fucked up that’s not in my apartment, and that the construction team needs to come out and fix it at the tap (or further upstream) level.
I’d like to say I’m hopeful, but I’m not. I’ve heard about the work orders for the construction team to come out two times previously, I see no real reason why it’s going to work this time.
But, he did mention that after four repeat visits in 14 days, the managers were going to start getting involved. Apparently they don’t like having to send people out constantly and waste money without (successfully) shutting me up. Since my Internet only works in one direction.
That seems only fair, since I’ve had to miss work three times and stay home all Memorial Day weekend in order to wait for technicians to show up. In fact, I’m still bitter, and figure I should probably cost them more money.
He confirmed (like many of the other technicians) that Ultimate is going to be even more sensitive to signal quality, and there’s a good chance that just about nobody will actually be able to get it. Apparently they’re already way oversold on it too, they were planning 2-3 installs per month, and they’re already starting waiting lists with 50+ people per technician. Yikes. If it would solve my problems, I’d gladly pay for 100mbit/15mbit Internet service at ~$100. I just want a functioning Internet connection that just works.
At this point, my only real alternative is something like speakeasy. My building is rated for 8mbit down and 1 mbit up theoretically, which would run something like $175/month. That’s not a particularly good deal by comparison, though it comes with an SLA. But, like most DSL, I’m sure we’d discover the lines are noisy, and I’d get far less than that. And that’s at least three times as much as I’m paying for my (nonfunctional) 30/5 cable Internet now. DSL is a joke.
So, I don’t have high hopes, and I’m sure I’ll have to explain on the phone again that my router isn’t the problem, I don’t need to plug my computer directly into the modem, my modem doesn’t need replacing, my modem does’t need restarting, I have showered this week, I know what the Internet is, and that, yes, if you look at your BISC tools page, you’ll see everything I’m about to tell you. But maybe things will get escalated, and this will get fixed before I get fed up and move again, just so I can get a working net connection.
Really pathetic that housing decisions have to care about internet access, but I’m obviously in the same boat. I mitigated it somewhat by practically moving in to the same building as the internet, but I’d like to be able to play games at home instead of at work all the time..
— カイル 4 June 2009 #
Are you the only one in your complex who’s having this problem? Does no one else care?
— Rachel 5 June 2009 #
Apparently. The techs have all been surprised that nobody else is complaining.
— Aaron N. Tubbs 5 June 2009 #
That’s probably because no one else is technically literate enough to watch streaming movies on the computer…
Well, my suggestion, give up and get a OC-12 to your apartment. That might help.
Seriously though, I had speak easy for work at my job in Greenwich. They were actually pretty good. It was our crappy linksys wireless router that ended up being the network bottleneck.
— Zachary 5 June 2009 #